The school district, with 1,500 students and about 200 staff and faculty, made adjustments in its most recent budget, including a $1.9 million spending cut, eliminating modified sports, and cutting janitorial staff. A total of 31 positions were eliminated and the district is now without a fund balance.

“I hope people will hear us now,” said Watervliet superintendent Lori Caplan, noting that she was well aware of the issues facing the district prior to the report’s release. She noted that she reached out to the Watervliet Arsenal Business and Technology Partnership which donated $20,000 to the district in October in an effort to help save extracurricular activities.

Due to the community’s lack of a large tax base, Caplan said her district “got to the edge of the cliff first.”

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While the district constructed new sports facilities and other completed other upgrades, those projects were done without any impact to taxpayers with a separate allotment of funds.

The report, concluded in June 2013, was released on Thursday by the Office of the State Comptroller. The report described 13 percent of districts statewide as being fiscally stressed.

To date, 12 school districts have been classified as in “significant fiscal stress,” 23 in “moderate fiscal stress,” and 52 as “susceptible to fiscal stress.”

The state comptroller said 587 districts have been classified as “no designation.”

“School districts are a critical barometer to the fiscal health of our local communities,”said Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. “Unfortunately, reductions in state aid, a cap on local revenue and decreased rainy day funds are creating financial challenges that more and more school districts are having trouble overcoming. My office’s fiscal stress scores highlight the need for school district officials to manage their finances carefully with an eye towards long-range planning and how they can operate more efficiently.”

The comptroller’s office analyzed separate environmental indicators to help provide insight into the health of the local economy and other challenges that might affect a school district’s finances. These include such measures as student enrollment, property value, budget vote results and poverty. It also took into account year-end fund balance, cash position and patterns of operating deficits, officials said.

Meanwhile, Caplan was cautiously optimistic about the future and hoped that the district would receive a “proper amount” of state aid in the governor’s proposed budget. She said no academic programs have been affected in Watervliet and the district has complied with all new state regulations. She felt that incentives for the districts were good but that it made no sense to have the highest need districts with the fewest resources competing for funding. Still, she said: “We have no where to go but up.”

A meeting with stakeholders from 47 school districts facing similar fiscal constraints is slated for Jan. 30 at Colonie Central High School at 6:30 p.m.